Sunday, April 26, 2009

Movie of the Month: Part Five

A few weeks a-go, I re-viewed the fol-lowing DVD for Video Librarian, and thought the results were worth sharing.

CAREFUL[***1/2](Guy Maddin, 1992, Canada, 100 mins.)

For his third fantastical feature, Winnipeg iconoclast Guy Maddin added glorious color—in saturated shades of gold,sky blue, and violet—to his palette. Co-written with collabor-ator George Toles, this "remastered and repressed" version of1992's Careful pivots on the imaginary turn-of-the-centuryalpine town of Tolzbad, where any loud noise could cause anavalanche, so the villagers live their lives in virtual silence.

For mother-obsessed butler brothers Johann (Brent Neale) andGrigorss (Kyle McCulloch, Tales of the Gimli Hospital), physicaland emotional repression leads them down some dark and twist-ed paths (entwined in cobwebs, a third brother lives in the at-tic, where he receives visits from their blind father's ghost).

Since Maddin has also dir-ected a few silent (or semi-silent) movies, notably 20-06's Brand upon the Brain!, the premise provides a per-fect fit for his expressionist-meets-constructivist style, except his artificially-aged films are always funnier than their descriptions suggest, and Carefulis no exception.

In their uninhibited commentary, Maddin and Toles cite Ger-many's mountain melodramas and the literature of Robert Wal-ser as two of their wide-ranging influences. Maddin also attribut-es the hazy, dreamlike look of the picture to over-exposure, "wav-ery apertures," and "dipping the film in some sort of colorful acid."

Other extras include his symbolist-inspired 1994 short Odilon Redon: the Eye like a Strange Balloon Mounts Towards Infinity,and Noam Gonick's Waiting for Twilight, a Tom Waits-narrateddocumentary on Maddin's background and the making of 1997'sTwilight of the Ice Nymphs. At the time, he claimed it might be"my last movie.” Fortunately, Maddin failed to follow throughon that threat and Carefulcomes highly recommended.

Click here for Movies of the Month, Part Four: Summer Palace and Lost in Beijing

Friday, April 24, 2009

Hallowed Ground

The Curious Mystery, Rotting Slowly, KRecords[5/19/09]

Curious Mystery lays claim to the same sort of hallowedground carved out by David Roback's Opal and Mazzy Star. Morerecent practitioners of the narcotized proto-punk blues includeNina Nastasia, Cat Power, Scout Niblett, She Keeps Bees, and P.J.Harvey on To Bring You My Love. I'm a sucker for this kind ofthing, so Rotting Slowly is right up my...lonely avenue.

Granted, it's a formula: smoky chanteuse, usually an alto, confes-ses her darkest secrets over slow-motion guitar (with slide inter-ludes), minimal bass, and jazzbo drums (heavy on the brushes),but like any formula, it only seems tired when executed poorly.

Faustine B. Hudson (drums, gong, dinner bell, plastic tube) and Bradford Button (bass guitar) complete a Seattle-based line-up that boasts some of the coolest names in rock. (If you run an Amazon search on the band's name, The Curious Case ofBenjamin Button shows up among the results).

If I've never heard of an artist before, I don't tend to expectmuch, because buzz travels louder and faster than ever thesedays, and Curious Mystery was new to me until a day ago.

So, I turned on Slowly, with no preconceptions about what wasabout to unfold. By the third song, a frisky instrumental, I realizedthis is one of my favorite CDs of the year. If you like any of the ar-tists above, along with the Black Angels, you may feel the same.

Endnote:For more information about CuriousMystery, please click here. Images from Flickr(Jay Cox; 02/08 at the Mars Bar) and the AMG.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Passionand Power

The Tiptons Sax Quartet, Laws of Motion, Zipa!/Spoot Music

"Our music is a high energy blend of 'twisted folk' with world music, second line, funk, jazz, and Eastern European influ-ences thrown into the mix of mainly original material."-- the Tiptons Sax Quartet

For those unacquainted with the 20-year-old outfit, they de-fy classifications like pop and jazz, although both genres comeinto play, along with afro-beat, klezmer, rai, and more (the 11tracks include vocals and instrumentals). This particular albumreminds me of the Lounge Lizards and the Jazz Passengers—es-pecially the opening track —and I mean that as a compliment.

Naturally, there's some spirited blowing here, especially on"The Shop of Wild Dreams." If the Tiptons are best known fortheir playing, they offer some fine singing, too, especially on acap-pella closer "Mi Yo Mei," a traditional Taiwanese chant. And ifyou keep listening, a short hidden song follows, in which theythrow a little old-timey country into the mix. Recommended.

Born Anchors, Sprezzatura, Steer Clear Music

“This is the best local rock release this year”-- John Richards, KEXP

"The most exciting rock bandin Seattle right now.”-- Megan Seling, The Stranger

Music to wake you up, to shake you up, to thoroughly invigorate you. In all honesty, I didn't like this Seattle trio's debut on first listen, but it started to click into place the second time through. Still, their energetic take on emo isn't my thing—though KEXP, KNDD, The Stranger, and The Weekly areall over it—but I can appreciate their passion and power.

Tucker Jameson and the Hot Mugs, OrSomething in Between..., Horizon Music Group

On their second CD, Jameson and his Hot Mugs mixup a hearty bar band concoction with an organ-fueled kick,like a cross between Greg Kihn and John Cougar Mellencamp.

In the UK, they prefer the term pub rock, and I don't mean thatas a pejorative. Remember those 1970s and '80s indie labels, likeStiff or Beserkley? This Berklee College of Music-trained quartetwould fit on either quite well. Could be more memorable, but Or Something... plays like a not-unwelcome blast from the past.

Ronald of Orange sprinkles wavery, Brit-inflected vocalsover bright, tinkly keyboards and drum-machine beats. His five-track EP is the essence of '80s-style twee pop, and fans of the Cure,Pete Shelley, and M83's Saturdays = Youth would do wise to lendhim an ear. If his thin voice strains at time, a bit of crackle onlyserves to add character to his bouyant charm offensive.

Endnote: The film Passion and Power: The Technol-ogy of Orgasm documents the history of the vibrator. Formore information about Born Anchors, who play the SunsetTavern on 5/2, please click here; for Tucker Jameson, hereor here; for Ronald of Orange, here; and for the Tiptons,here or here. Jessica Lurie image from Something Else!

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Between 1968-1973, my favorite songs were the Ohio Express's "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy" and Sweet's "Little Willy." Though the latter was a real band, the former was a faceless assemblage of session musicians (I'm sure they had actual faces; they just didn't show them to the public). Granted, Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman wrote Sweet's early material, but that makes them no less authentic to me. They weren't auteurs, but the British quartet made each song their own through ace musicianship and a certain indefinable joi de vivre. They always gave the impression they were playing at the world's grooviest party, and you wanted to be there. Fruity drink in hand.

The reason I liked them so much as a grade-schooler isn't just be-cause of the sticky-sweet hooks, but because a lot of Chinnichaplyrics sound like nursery rhymes. The faux-calypso "Poppa Joe,"for instance, consists primarily of the lines, "Poppa rumbo rumbo"and "Hey Poppa Joe coconut!" which says it all (island twin, "Co-Co," features steel drums and the chorus, "Ho-chi-ka-ka-ho Co-Co"). It's as if Harry Nilsson had constructed his entire car-eer around "Coconut" instead of "Everybody's Talkin'."

(The) Sweet - "Little Willy"

Further, Sweet rocked hard in a glam-glitter style, yet theyshared little of David Bowie or Queen's artistic aspirations (thepress notes also cite ELO, Supertramp, 10CC, and Def Leppard).Granted, I love '70s Bowie, but as the Ramones would prove,a complete lack of pretension has its place. It is what it is: nomulti-syllable words, no high-brow references. Just fun.

But with experience, the fun took on some weight—some heft, ifyou will—and it comes as little surprise to find that Shout Facto-ry's excellent two-disc collection leans heavily on the 1974 com-pilation Desolation Boulevard, a completely amazing album andnot just a smattering of singles surrounded by filler (it adds tracksfrom the UK-only Sweet Fanny Adams). That's right, it's up there—or should be—with Queen and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.

"Ballroom Blitz," in particular, fills me with joy like few other songs(with the possible exception of "Fox on the Run," the set's othershowstopper). Andy Scott attacks his guitar as if he were MarcBolan biting into "Last Train to Clarksville," while Brian Connol-ly's vocals are simply virtuosic. As for Mick Tucker's drumming,my vocabulary is insufficient to do it justice. Even Scott's soloat the end fails to wreck the flow (as Mick Collins might say).

Ironically, I spent more time listening to Sweet in elementaryschool and after college than I did in high school, yet many oftheir tunes revolve around the teen years. By the time I got tothat point, however, new wave and classic rock ruled the roost.

Queen weren't that much heavier—despite a more imposingimage—but they lacked Sweet's bubblegum/teenybopper bag-gage. So, by the time I re-discovered the prefab foursome, I'dspent years in the punk, post-punk, and alternative rock trench-es, and they came on like a breath of fresh air and a nostalgiatrip at the same time, always a heady combination for me.

(The) Sweet - "Ballroom Blitz"

I feel the same way today, and my view of their discography alsoremains unchanged: they peaked with Desolation, and everythingthat came after seems anti-climactic. Consequently, the seconddisc pales in comparison to the first, but it's still better than theShondell-free portion of the new Tommy James collection. Afterscaling similar teenybopper heights with "Hanky Panky" and thelike, James made the mistake of growing up, but Sweet neverreally did, so even their weakest tracks retain a youthful vigor

Plus, the second disc features "Love Is Like Oxygen," where theyleave their glam-rock roots behind for a foray into the prog-popof ELO and 10CC. Connolly, who always had a fine falsetto, aban-dons any suggestion of masculinity, and gives in to his feminineside. The single even incorporates a Ren Fair-meets-pastoral LedZep passage, a total 180 from the Sweetof old. Yet, it works. Andit was their last hurrah. In the years to come, the less sexually am-biguous Cheap Trick would pick up where they left off, but no onehas ever been able to recapture Sweet's special alchemy circaDesolation Boulevard, that unique mixture of experience andinnocence, aggression and sensitivity: all the agony and theecstasy of the teen years poured into one pretty package.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

"A meet-ing of the minds, a musical summit, staged in a sagging barn in North Mississippi."-- Andrea Lisle in the liner notes***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Years ago, I interviewed Pete Kember, alias Sonic Boom, andasked why he chose to cover Elvis' sparse lament "Lonely Ave-nue" on his debut album, Spectrum. His answer was simple:he had a thing for songwriter Doc Pomus, i.e. it was more about Pomus than Presley (and Indian Giver's "Til Your Mainline Comes" even features a noirish "Lonely Avenue" bassline).

So, it's not completely unexpected to find that Sonic also has athing—a jones, if you will—for Memphis session musician/pro-ducer Jim Dickinson, who's manned the boards for everyonefrom Big Star to the Replacements and contributed keys to theStones' "Wild Horses." (And I can only assume the admiration runs both ways.) Their collaboration combines space-rock with south-ern stylings, and it's unlike anything I've ever heard before.

Recorded in Mississippi with an eight-piece band plus the TateCounty Singers, the nine-track recording represents a harmo-nious melding of two different worlds, to say nothing of diver-gent geographic and generational backgrounds (Sonic grew upin Rugby, UK), though the drone-rocker's interest in gospelhas always been crystal clear; see "I Walk with Jesus," et al.

The whispery Sonic sounds the same as ever, while Dickinson comes on like a crusty cross between J.J. Cale and Tom Waits. Neither is a great singer, but both have enormous appeal. I particularly like the way the Captain sounds as if he's singing through dentures or the bottom of a bottle of bourbon.

For "Mary," "Mary Reprise," and "Confederate Dead," the gen-tlemen put the vocals aside. Fittingly, two sound like Sonic; the other like Dickinson (to clarify, Sonic decorates "Mary Reprise" with wordless utterings that have a certain "instrumental" feel).

Spaceman 3 and Spectrum adherents will surely recognizethree of the other tracks, specifically "Hey Man" (Perfect Pres-cription), Mudhoney's "When Tomorrow Hits" (Recurring), and "Take Your Time" (Highs, Lows & Heavenly Blows). These new iterations may not be superior, but they're hardly inferior. I particularly like the extra fuzz on the hymn-like "Man."

I doubt I'll be the first to describe Indian Giver as a sortof psychedelic gumbo or Delta drone. (For the All Music Guide, Mark Deming dubs the disc a "Dixie-fried freakout.") Had I heard this record in April of 2008, the time of its original release, it would've easily made my top 10 for the year. Call this mu-sical meeting what you will. I call it: absolutely fantastic.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

"A gentlemanly agreement escalated into a full-fledged battle for the controls, and then whoosh! Sonic was ejected from the ship...an experiment halted midstream, with just these nine songs as proof that it even happened. Which man was in the right? Each has his battalion of saints ready to voice an opinion—and, each says, the collaborative door has shut. There will never be a second mission." -- Andrea Lisle

4/20 update: Will Bratton of Pomus Songs, Inc. writes, "Re-garding the song 'Lonely Avenue' (Pomus), Pete Kember prob-ably spoke more about Pomus than he did about Elvis because Elvis never recorded 'Lonely Avenue.' Ray Charles and countless others did, however. Pomus did write 19 other songs that were recorded by Elvis, including 'Viva Las Vegas,' 'Suspicion,' 'Little Sister,' 'Mess of Blues,' 'Surrender,' 'Kiss Me Quick,' and '(Marie's the Name of) His Latest Flame.'" I can no longer remember whether Sonic made the error or me—I suspect it was the latter—but in my mind's ear I could hear Presley perform-ing "Lonely Avenue" while we were speaking, and must'veconflated song and performance with "Heartbreak Hotel."

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Wire: How do you know that "Jesus loves the Spacemen"?And doesn't that line come from the Jazz Butcher?

Sonic: Almost certainly. I do have spiritual beliefs, but I don't believe in Jesus Christ as a person from Nazareth and...

Wire: You do mention Jesus Christ a lot. Do you like the image...

Sonic: Jesus, never Christ! Jesus is how I term the embodiment of what I believe in as well as the embodiment of my religious beliefs. In the same way, Lord is mentioned in quite a lot of the songs. It's like I use it in the same way the gospel singers would use that [term]. They use it as the embodiment of their religion. But my religion is more about belief in oneself and one's potential and belief in other people and the potential of people. I mean, I believe the kingdom of heaven is within. Different things can access you to that. Some of those are psychoactive drugs.

Wire: What got you interested in psychedelic music?

Sonic: Ummm, psychedelic drugs.

Wire: Just a natural progression?

Sonic: Almost as soon as I started taking drugs, the onlyband, the only drug band that I listened to—before takingdrugs, really—was the Velvet Underground. And yeah,the drugs made me want to listen to the music and the musicmade me want to try different drugs. I felt that I wanted to ex-perience different levels of consciousness anyway, with or with-out music, but music is a nice jump to recreational drug use.

Wire: Who are some of the English bandsyou like best or look to as contemporaries?

Sonic: My Bloody Valentine, and an American band that I thinkare probably bigger in the UK, Galaxie 500. I like Dean Wareham'ssolo stuff that I've heard, particularly a track he's done called "In-dian Summer," which is on a record with Chemical Imbalance[fanzine]. That is one of the most beautiful songs I've heard, I think I can safely say. Also Daniel Johnston, another American songwriter—someone I admire as a contemporary. And Happy Mondays. Their first album came out the same time as our second album. In fact, they, or a couple of them, introduced themselves to me after a gig we played in Manchester around that time. They'd obviously recognized the parallel that we were running to them. Although they were using different types of rhythms and sounds, they were basically putting them together in the same minimal way and putting the lyrics on in the same sort of way to have a similar effect. Obviously, different people using different ingredients, but kind of baking the same cake, if you know whatI mean—pretty baked, the whole lot of us! [laughs]

Friday, April 10, 2009

Wire: Is it true that Perfect Prescription is a concept album about drugs?

Sonic: I think Spacemen 3 is a concept...

Wire: About drugs?

Sonic:[laughs] Yeah, well, my motto from the startwas "Taking drugs to make music to take drugs to."

Wire: I've got the record with that title, the "demos" record.

Sonic: Right, another bootleg.

Wire: For a bootleg, the sound quality is actually very good.

Sonic: That was the first thing...that was when Ichose to outline what we were—our manifesto.

Wire: What can you tell me about your song "Angel." Is that a true story?

Sonic: Yes, about a friendof mine who overdosed.

Wire: Lyrically, it's something that stands out to me.

Sonic: Musically, it's inspired by Lou Reed's "Street Has-sle," which "Ode to Street Hassle" was inspired by, and is a continuation. In the same way, "Angel" is a continuation of where "Ode to Street Hassle" left off. It's basically...what canI say? It's about a friend of mine who died. It encapsulatesthe thoughts and feelings I felt when that happened.

Wire: I'm also curious about "Revolution." Whatspurred you to write a song like that? It's differentlyrically from what Spacemen 3 usually does.

Sonic: Well...not particularly. Thematically, not lyrically, butthematically, it's more political or sociopolitical even though it'snot political-politics. It was basically [that] I wasn't very happyat that time. I could see that what I'd felt over the previous fewyears was...a negativesocial situation amongst what I'd considermy peer group...or social group. And I felt that there needed to besome changes and that a lot of people were looking to make chang-es. To a certain extent, I was talking about a drugs revolution. Thenormal thing in England is for people just to go out and drink fivepints of beer every night. People start to realize that there aremore beneficial ways of raising their consciousness and thereare a whole load of levels of consciousness worth experien-cing that had far more to offer than alcohol.

Revolution(lyrics: Spacemen 3)Well look outWell I’m sickI’m so sickOf a lot of peopleTryin’ to tell meWhat I can and can’t doWith my lifeAnd I’m tiredI’m so tiredOf a lot of peopleIn a lot of high placesDon’t want you and meTo enjoy ourselvesWell I’m through with peopleWho can’t get off their arseTo help themselves change this governmentAnd better this society‘Cos it’s shitBut hold on a secondI smell burningAnd I see a changeComin’ ‘round the bendAnd I suggest to youThat it takesJust five secondsJust five secondsOf decisionTo realiseThat the timeIs rightTo start thinkin’ aboutA little…Revolution!

they were going to change the lyrics like that. See what they'd changed them to—which was basically a pisstake, a wordplay,

on some things I'd said in the UK press—I wasn't interested in doing a joint project when I realized what sort of fans they were.

However, we had recorded this version of "When Tomorrow Hits,"

not to do a single originally, but because it had stood out. I'd writ-

ten to them and said I'd enjoyed their version that they'd been

doing live of "Revolution." They sent a tape back of stuff they were

doing for their future album as it was then, and that song stood

out, so we did that. Then they brought out their version of "Rev-

olution" [a B-side on Glitterhouse]. I didn't want to have anything to do with it. Partly that, and partly because I found the guys at Sub Pop—one of them was very charming and one of them was a total dickhead. So, I didn't really want to get involved with them.

I didn't like it because

they'd re-written the lyr-

ics, yet still credited them

to Spacemen 3 when the credits should have been to them. I felt they should have credited themselves for that little piece of "songwriting."

I thought it would be a good idea for our version of their song to come out, because I felt it was more a pisstake of them than their version of "Revolution" was of us. In a totally different way, it was a far superior pisstake in that we made their version look like a demo. Whereas their version was like some kind of college brat hum-

or which I don't particularly like in rock bands. I mean—don't get me wrong—Animal House is one of my favorite films, but it's great as a film.

[Funny, Animal House is one of my favorite films, too...]

Wire: Do you have any idea what they think of your version?

Sonic: No, I don't. I don't really care. I mean, that wasn't the reason for doing it. It was just something I found I could do something with. They did say in an interview afterwards that they'd actually written the song originally to be like a "Spacemen 3/Wire" song. So, they'd written it to be like that anyway, I guess.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

Sonic Boom's Revolution

An Interviewwith Pete Kem-ber: Part One

In honor of Sonic Boom's upcom-ing Seattle appear-ance, in his Spec-trum incarnation, here's an edited version of an interview which debuted in KCMU's Wire in 1991. Around the same time, I also interviewed Pete "Bassman" Bain and Jason "Spaceman" Pierce. The latter two had just left the "3" to form their own outfits: respectively, the Darkside and Spiritualized.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

I discovered Spacemen 3 in 1988. It was at a time whenI hadn't come across anything new in a while that I foundparticularly original or exciting. Perfect Prescription was—ifyou'll pardon the saying—exactly what the doctor ordered.

Like Fried-era Julian Cope, early Rain Parade, and the now-defunct Opal, here was neo-psychedelia done up right. No sit-ars, backwards guitars, or hippie-dippy lyrical clichés. This stuffsounded retro, contemporary, and totally timeless all at once.I was an instant convert to their guitar-as-god religion.

I immediately got ahold of their first record, the grungier,heavily Motor City-influenced Sound of Confusion. Two morefull-length releases followed: the slightly disappointing, yet ul-timately more eclectic and experimental Playing With Fire andtheir latest—and last—Recurring. Perfect Prescription is stillmy favorite—possibly one of my favorite albums of all time.

Spacemen 3 brokeup just before issu-ing their final long-player—and with amajor label, no less(RCA). Various art-icles and interviewspublished earlier this year in the British weeklies would lead one to believe that the split was due primarily to major personal-ity clashes between singer/songwriter/guitarist/solo artist Sonic Boom and singer/songwriter/guitarist/Spiritualized founder Jason Pierce.

Regardless as to the reason—or reasons—for the break, thefact remains that the band is dust. While Recurring isn't theirbest record, it isn't their worst either. Side one is credited toSonic Boom and side two to Jason. Surprisingly, the twohalves fit together quite well—proof that their differencesprobably were more personality-related than musical.

This spring, I got the chance to speak with Sonic Boom longdistance from the offices of Dedicated Records, the last labelSpacemen 3 recorded for in the UK (ironically, Dedicatedwill be releasing both Sonic Boom and Spiritualized projects).

Although I decided against asking about the possibly still-sensi-tive issue of the group's demise, I asked just about every otherquestion I've ever had about Spacemen 3 and/or Sonic's solocareer. For the most part, I found Boom, i.e. Pete Kember, tobe friendly and forthcoming—contrary to British press opinion.

Siffblog: Silent Light, film number three from Mexico'sCarlos Reygadas. Given time, I also intend to wrap up my interview with Trouble the Water's Tia Lessin before start-ing one with Medicine for Melancholy's Barry Jenkins.

About Me

I write about popular music and film and the relationship between the two. I'm Irish on one side, Italian on the other—British on both. I was born in Connecticut (Far From Heaven), raised in Alaska (Northern Exposure), and I've lived in Seattle, WA (Trouble in Mind) since 1988.